The development of a Radar Digital Unit for the SASARII project
Justin Mark Webster · 2004
This dissertation describes the design, implementation and testing of the Radar Digital Unit (RDU), a subsystem for the South African Synthetic Aperture Radar II (SASARII). The SASARII is an airborne demonstrator SAR system for a spaceborne SAR and Un-manned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) imaging radar. The demonstrator system parameters, such as bandwidth, reflect the desired spaceborne SAR parameters. The Radar Digital Unit contains the following three modules: • Digital Pulse Generator (DPG) that outputs a chirp every Pulse Repetition Interval (PRI) for transmission • Sampling Unit (SU), which samples the received IF signal every PRI, forms a packet of samples and flight information and sends the packet for storage • Timing Unit (TU), which distributes triggers to the SASARII system every PRI. Based upon the user requirements, Parsec, a company in Pretoria, South Africa, supplied generic hardware for the RDU. SASARII firmware was developed for each module at Parsec under their guidance and support. The testing of the three modules was conducted